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By Patricia Zengerle, Reuters
Most Americans, no matter what their political party, believe there is too much money in politics and reject the idea that people should be allowed to spend what they want, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Thursday.
Seventy-five percent of Americans feel there is too much money in politics, and only 25 percent feel there is an intrinsic right to unfettered election spending, an argument commonly used by opponents of controls on campaign finance.
Almost the same proportion - 76 percent - feel that the amount of money in elections has given rich people more influence than other Americans, the online survey found. "What we're essentially seeing is Americans are fed up with the system and they think all the money in the system is not fair and they don't like it," said Chris Jackson, research director at Ipsos public affairs.
The poll was taken on May 22-24, with campaigning for the November 6 general election contest between President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney well under way. [MORE]
The Constitution was written for just such an occasion. This is the corruption and abuse of power our nation's Founders equipped us to confront.
As Europe jogs toward its endgame, the euro could still be saved. But that would require major changes from European leaders.
by PAUL KRUGMAN, New York Times columnist
Suddenly, it has become easy to see how the euro — that grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political union — could come apart at the seams. We’re not talking about a distant prospect, either. Things could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years. And the costs — both economic and, arguably even more important, political — could be huge.
This doesn’t have to happen; the euro (or at least most of it) could still be saved. But this will require that European leaders, especially in Germany and at the European Central Bank, start acting very differently from the way they’ve acted these past few years. They need to stop moralizing and deal with reality; they need to stop temporizing and, for once, get ahead of the curve.
I wish I could say that I was optimistic. [MORE]
"If we head down this path, we will become a different nation — coarser, harsher toward the vulnerable and people who experience what FDR termed the 'vicissitudes of life,' unable to invest adequately in our future, and willing to tolerate levels of poverty and inequality that are present nowhere else in the Western world."
by ROBERT GREENSTEIN, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
No one should underestimate the significance of House Speaker John Boehner's declaration yesterday that he will block an increase in the debt limit next winter unless policymakers match each dollar of debt limit increase with at least a dollar in budget cuts, with no revenue increases. This standard, which key Republican leaders have said they will insist on for all future debt limit increases, would both produce extreme policies and repeat these lawmakers' hostage-taking strategy of last summer that threatened the economy and full faith and credit of the U.S. government — and raised the risks of a first-ever, potentially catastrophic, default.
Nor should the Speaker's pronouncement come as a surprise. When last summer's debt limit showdown ended with a spending-cuts only package, Republican Congressional leaders from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan to Senator Rob Portman announced that, in Ryan's words, the agreement "establish[es] a clear precedent that any future debt limit increases must be matched by an even larger cut in government spending."
Nevertheless, Speaker Boehner's pronouncement is highly significant for three reasons.
First, the Boehner standard would produce policies that can only be described as extremist. [MORE]
By HELENE COOPER, The New York Times
CAMP DAVID, Md. — Leaders of the world’s richest countries banded together on Saturday to press Germany to back more pro-growth policies to halt the deepening debt crisis in Europe, as President Obama for the first time gained widespread support for his argument that Europe, and the United States by extension, cannot afford Chancellor Angela Merkel’s one-size-fits-all approach emphasizing austerity.
Pointedly recognizing “that the right measures are not the same for each of us,” the leaders of the Group of 8 nations, at a meeting hosted by Mr. Obama at Camp David, committed to “take all necessary steps” to strengthen their economies. They said they wanted to keep Greece in the euro zone and vowed to work to promote growth in Europe, though they did not detail how they would do so.
“Our imperative,” the leaders said in their statement, “is to promote growth and jobs.” [MORE]
By SOL WACHTLER, Commentary, timesunion.com
Sol Wachtler is the former chief judge of the state of New York and a distinguished juror in residence at Touro Law School.
President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney have now taken sides in the same-sex marriage debate. . . . It is true that marriage in this country was historically between one man and one woman, a fact the Mormons had to accept in order for Utah to gain admittance to the Union. But what was also "traditional" about that "traditional" marriage was that until the middle of the 19th century, a woman in a "traditional" marriage had to give up all of her property rights to her husband. . . . (T)here was a time when race rather than sex was at the heart of the marriage debate in this country. . . . As late as 1967, if Justice Clarence Thomas had lived in Virginia, or almost a third of the states in the union, he would have been prohibited by law from marrying his white wife, as would have Obama's father. The justification for the miscegenation laws ring familiar ... it would be an affront to "traditional" marriages. [MORE]
By Judd Legum and Josh Israel, Think Progress
This week, the New York Times reported that Joe Ricketts, a right-wing billionaire and founder of TD Ameritrade, is soliciting multi-million dollar ad proposals to attack President Obama...
Ricketts’ spokesman confirmed his intention spend money attacking Obama through an organization he controls called “Ending Spending Political Action Fund.”
There is one area, however, where Ricketts is much more open to government spending. He’s seeking a massive government subsidy for the Chicago Cubs, which he owns with his family, to renovate Wrigley Field...
So Joe Ricketts and his family not only want a $150 million subsidy directly from taxpayers but also a large chunk of tax revenue from the city in perpetuity. In other words, taxes from the City of Chicago would no longer go to roads, schools and police officers but also into Joe Ricketts pocket. [MORE]
By Pete Kasperowicz and Jeremy Herb, The Hill
The House on Friday approved a sweeping defense authorization bill for 2013 that calls for the construction of an East Coast missile defense system in the United States by the end of 2015.
The bill obligates $100 million next year to plan for the site, but the project would cost billions of dollars in later years that has yet to be funded.
The language was derided by a House Democrat as an "East Coast Star Wars fantasy base" but nonetheless escaped further scrutiny during floor debate Wednesday and Thursday on amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Friday afternoon, members approved the bill in a 299-120 vote after approving dozens of amendments, some after fierce debate that revealed disagreements on issues such as detainee policy, nuclear cooperation with Russia and the speed of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Seventy-seven Democrats support the bill, while 16 Republicans opposed it. [MORE]
by SUZY KHIMM, Washington Post
There are only about 10 House Republicans who have refused to stand by Grover Norquist’s pledge against tax increases. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) is one of them, having declined to renew his pledge last year. He doubled down on his refusal in an interview this week with the American Conservative:
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (Joshua Roberts - Bloomberg)
RD: You broke party ranks last year by refusing to renew your pledge not to vote for any future tax increases. Since when do Republican congressmen dare to defy Grover Norquist?
JF: My responsibility is to make judgments about hard, complex issues that I believe to be right. Simply looking at the status quo and suggesting that the tax code is sacrosanct and can never change, and that decisions made in the ’80s and ’90s can never change, is absurd. The tax code is weighted toward the ultra-wealthy and ultra-wealthy corporations, and has created an offshore aristocracy of people who can afford to hire an army of accountants and lawyers. This shifts the tax burden to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and others. I don’t want to see taxes go up on any hardworking American. We need a simpler, fairer tax code. Removing special-interest loopholes could potentially increase revenues and allow for lower rates. [MORE]
TAYLOR LINCOLN, Huffington Post
Revisiting the lessons from deregulating derivatives is particularly important right now because Congress seems to have forgotten them. A report we just issued provides a road map of how derivatives wrecked the economy in 2008 and could do so again if Wall Street gets its way.
Nine bills that would roll back the derivatives reforms created in the wake of the financial crisis are moving in Congress. These proposals, most of which have already passed in committee, have been put forth in the name of furthering the competitiveness of U.S. companies and creating jobs for Main Street. These are quite brazen claims, since deregulating derivatives arguably did more to harm economic competitiveness and job creation than anything Congress has done for a very long time.
Here is the history, in brief: At the end of the Clinton administration, financial derivatives were relatively new and sat in a regulatory netherworld. In practice, they were not regulated. But they bore all the hallmarks of traditional futures, which by law must be traded on regulated exchanges. [MORE]
Ari Berman is the author of Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics.
by ARI BERMAN, NPR
Late last week, I heard the news about J.P. Morgan's staggering $2 billion in losses on the same day I read Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article about the death of financial reform and Nick Confessore's New York Times Magazine piece about President Obama's fundraising on Wall Street. After reading these two articles in conjunction with the J.P. Morgan news, I could only come to one conclusion: it's impossible to "reform" Wall Street if the president is dependent on the financial sector to bankroll his re-election campaign. The banks can be Obama's friend or his enemy, but right now they can't be both.
That's why Obama should follow the lead of Elizabeth Warren and make Wall Street accountability a centerpiece of his re-election campaign. That would mean an end to the lavish fundraisers held by the titans of high finance (like the one last night), toughening and rigorously enforcing financial reform legislation and aggressively prosecuting Wall Street malfeasance. The banks would no doubt protest even louder than usual, but the public would heartily applaud. If the money dries up, so be it.
Obama stands the best shot at getting re-elected by making the election a choice between the 99 percent and the 1 percent, with Mitt Romney as the unabashed defender of the 21st century robber barons. It's easy to forget that the 1 percent, while overwhelmingly powerful in our political system, are by nature a tiny minority of voters. Thus, Obama's core message should be about ensuring fairness and expanding opportunity for the 99 percent. But he won't have the credibility to make such a message stick unless he jettisons what has been the albatross around his administration's neck — the closeness between Washington and Wall Street. [MORE]
From January of this year; CELDF Releases Statement on Activism Related to CitizensUnited
and a Model Bill of Rights Elections Ordinance to Eliminate
Corporate Activities which Interfere with the Right of People to
Clean Government and Fair Elections.
by ANNA PALMER and ROBIN BRAVENDER, Politico
Corporations have a new foe to watch: the shame lobby.
Consumer activists and others have chalked up a string of stunning victories recently that would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago.
Advocates have been able to publicly embarrass corporations into dropping affiliations with nonprofits and others — and even change their business practices using free social-media tools like Twitter and Facebook. Unlike past pressure campaigns and boycotts that were expensive and took months or years — if they got any traction at all — organizers can get thousands of people behind their cause in a matter of hours and results within days.
Blue-chip companies like Coca-Cola, Kraft, McDonald’s, Verizon and Eli Lilly have caught on — fleeing nonprofits, dropping advertisements or changing course on fees in response to online-driven campaigns in unprecedented numbers this year.
The delivery of the pressure might be new, but for businesses it’s PR 101: Relent quickly or risk tarnishing the brand. [MORE]
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by Stephen D. Foster Jr., Addicting Info
Mitt Romney, despite the massive job losses Bain Capital caused when he was running it, calls himself a job creator. But that title is hard to believe, especially since Romney is gushing about Hewlet-Packard CEO and former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman on the same day it is discovered that her company is killing American jobs.
In an interview with the National Review published on Thursday, Mitt Romney said he wished Whitman were the Governor of California instead of Jerry Brown, whom Romney insisted was doing things wrong. Romney praised Whitman as an economic guru, telling the Review, “I wish Californians had elected Meg Whitman. She would have been more successful and explained to Californians the need to cut back on spending and eliminate unnecessary programs.”
Romney’s praise for Whitman couldn’t have come at more inopportune time, as The New York Times reported on the same day that Whitman intends to eliminate 30,000 American jobs mostly through layoffs and forcing workers into early retirement. Even though Hewlett-Packard made a staggering $7.1 billion profit in 2011, Whitman is cutting these jobs in America while leaving Hewlett-Packard jobs intact in China and elsewhere. [MORE]
"A Question of Integrity" examines growing concerns about ethically questionable and overtly political behavior by some Supreme Court justices, and explores the need the need to apply the same ethical standards that govern every other judge in the federal court system to the nation's highest court. Viewers are called to action in support of reforms essential to preserve the integrity of our most important legal institution.
It’s hardly news that the Great Recession pushed millions of Americans into poverty. In 2010, “poverty” meant having an income of less than $22,113 for a family of four; 15.1 percent of Americans were below that line.
by Jesse LaGreca, MINISTRYOFTRUTH
An outstanding segment of the Ed Show that you should see, in which Senator Bernie Sanders lays some truth on us in better words than I could regarding the Too Big To Fail banks, the money that controls the system, and how Jamie Dimon and JPMorganChase just proved everyone's point when we said that these banks can still crash the economy again and need to be broken up and re-regulated strictly.
[WATCH NOW]
Starting off the segment, Ed showed a clip of Congressman Barney Frank who made a very salient point . . .
REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), MASSACHUSETTS:
"Mr. Dimon wanted a version of the Volcker Rule that frankly wouldn't do very much. I think we now have a stronger argument for a Volcker Rule that says no to a bank -- your main job is lending and managing the money of your clients. You should not put your own money at risk."
Okay, so the Volcker Rule is a no-brainer here. [MORE]
The JPMorgan episode may be the warning that Congress needs to return to its role of protecting the public rather than coddling the banks. But it also raises a question: How many times does a lesson have to be taught before it is learned?
The Bottom Line, 5 pm ET Today on Coffee Party Radio
Hi everyone!
Here's what we've got going on my show today:
1. G8 Protests Live!
Sunday on The Bottom Line with Jessica English we bring you live coverage, first-hand and in-depth accounts of the big rallies and anti-war march in Chicago!
Our Guest: Lisa Luinenburg (with the group MIRAc), will be boarding her bus in Minnesota at 10pm Saturday night and riding all night long to join us after the marches to fill us in on the events.
What do you think of these anti-NATO demonstrations in Chicago and the anti-G8 rallies near Camp David? Are they good for our democracy?How do you feel about the protest some of our veterans have scheduled? Did you travel to Chicago or Maryland? What is all the protesting about? Please listen and/or call in:
THE BOTTOM LINE with Jessica English
Sunday, May 20, 5-7pm ET
Call: (646) 929-2495
2. New Coffee Party social media initiative
We've been talking about it for weeks - this video just came out!
Help us counter the distorted 1% media microphone with clear, honest, truly informative stories curated and written by the 99% to benefit the 99%! Check out the video and then please join our team!
Our first training/strategy call is at 11 am PT or 2 pm ET, Sunday, May 20th! Just click this link to join our team. Thanks already to Claire, Peter, Cathy, Matthew, Chod, Greg and others who have shown interest and contributed.
3. June 4-10 is National Coffee Party Week
Groups are forming all over the country to celebrate that week! Would you like to meet a some great people in your area who care about the future of our country? CLICK HERE to learn more.
I hope you can join me for an hour or two, Sunday, during my show, 5-7pm ET, or before the show, at 2pm (to become part of a great team), or with Billy at 1pm or 4pm ET. Thank you for your dedication to this democracy!
Most Grateful, Jess
Via Jessica English
INTERESTED? SIGN UP HERE by JESSICA ENGLISH, Coffee Party USA
Our Facebook page alone reaches more than a million people every day. It's an honor and a dream come true to connect with so many people using 99 Percent Media (media that most Americans can afford). It's a lot of fun too! But most of all, it's a huge responsibility. To compete with One Percent Media, we need more people like you to get involved.
We're not asking you to do anything you don't do already. Only now, when you go online, and find something that you think other people should read, you can share it with a larger community waiting to engage with you directly.
Help us "be the media" by signing up and or registering for an upcoming strategy call that will teach you how to help us operate one or more of our social media platforms. [MORE]
Via Coffee Party USA
by MICHAEL BECKEL, iWatch
In the aftermath of Tuesday’s Republican U.S. Senate primary in Nebraska, campaign finance watchdogs are concerned about the role businessman Joe Ricketts played in helping underdog state Sen. Deb Fischer secure the GOP nomination.
Ricketts, the founder of the Omaha-based online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, was behind a $250,000 last-minute super PAC ad buy designed to boost Fischer’s prospects in a three-way race that also featured frontrunner Jon Bruning, the state’s attorney general, and state Treasurer Don Stenberg, the favored candidate of the conservative Club for Growth and tea party-aligned Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
Thanks to this spending surge and an eleventh-hour endorsement from former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Fischer garnered more than twice as many votes as Stenberg — and beat Bruning by 5 percentage points. Her upset came after she raised only about one-eighth of Bruning’s $3.6 million haul.
If she prevails in November against Democrat Bob Kerrey, a former Nebraska governor and U.S. senator, watchdogs worry Ricketts’ influence would be considerable. [MORE]
Campaign finance reform advocates pushing the Supreme Court to revisit its 2010 Citizens United ruling to deregulate political spending got a surprise boost today from Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
by ELIZA NWLIN CARNEY, Roll Call
A stream of amicus briefs to the Supreme Court on a closely watched political spending case turned to a flood by the end of last week, as Members of Congress, attorneys general and advocacy groups weighed in.
The big surprise was a bipartisan brief from Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) urging justices to let stand a Montana law that bans corporate political expenditures. The court is weighing whether to take up a constitutional challenge to the law, and Friday marked the deadline for friend of the court briefs in that decision.
“Evidence from the 2010 and 2012 electoral cycles has demonstrated that so-called independent expenditures create a strong potential for corruption and the perception thereof,” the two Senators wrote in their brief. “The news confirms daily that existing campaign finance rules purporting to provide for ‘independence’ and ‘disclosure’ in fact provide neither.” [MORE]
Via Lynda Park
UPDATE: At TED this year, an attendee pitched a 3-minute audience talk on inequality. The talk tapped into a really important and timely issue. But it framed the issue in a way that was explicitly partisan. And it included a number of arguments that were unconvincing, even to those of us who supported his overall stance. The audience at TED who heard it live (and who are often accused of being overly enthusiastic about left-leaning ideas) gave it, on average, mediocre ratings.
At TED we post one talk a day on our home page. We're drawing from a pool of 250+ that we record at our own conferences each year and up to 10,000 recorded at the various TEDx events around the world, not to mention our other conference partners. Our policy is to post only talks that are truly special. And we try to steer clear of talks that are bound to descend into the same dismal partisan head-butting people can find every day elsewhere in the media. [READ MORE]
As American politics assumes its new form in the post-Citizens United era, the credit or the blame goes mostly to Roberts...
by JEFFREY TOOBIN, The New Yorker
In a different way, though, Citizens United is a distinctive product of the Roberts Court. The decision followed a lengthy and bitter behind-the-scenes struggle among the Justices that produced both secret unpublished opinions and a rare reargument of a case. The case, too, reflects the aggressive conservative judicial activism of the Roberts Court. It was once liberals who were associated with using the courts to overturn the work of the democratically elected branches of government, but the current Court has matched contempt for Congress with a disdain for many of the Court’s own precedents. When the Court announced its final ruling on Citizens United, on January 21, 2010, the vote was five to four and the majority opinion was written by Anthony Kennedy. Above all, though, the result represented a triumph for Chief Justice Roberts. Even without writing the opinion, Roberts, more than anyone, shaped what the Court did. As American politics assumes its new form in the post-Citizens United era, the credit or the blame goes mostly to him. [MORE]
Congressional Republicans are threatening another game of chicken with the debt ceiling. This will get America nowhere.
by JOHN AVLON, CNN
Confronted with record-low approval ratings, Congress seems determined to drive them down even further by planning another game of chicken with the debt ceiling this fall.
The last time they tried this game, the United States lost its Triple-A credit rating as Standard & Poor's opined that "the political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policy making becoming less stable, less effective and less predictable."
Talk about a zero percent learning curve. As you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Well, this asylum is being run by the inmates. [MORE]
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